Food Protection Trends - February 2009 - 91

Real Example of Incident: Industry Point-of-View DArrEN BlASS, Jack in the Box, 9330 Balboa Ave., San Diego, CA 92123, USA Jack in the Box® restaurants is one of the nation’s largest quick-service chains, with more than 2,100 company and franchised restaurants in the United States. In 1993, Jack in the Box experienced an E. coli outbreak that sickened hundreds of people. Tragically, four children died. The outbreak damaged the company’s reputation among consumers, its standing in the business community, and embroiled the company in numerous lengthy and costly legal battles. With tough lessons learned, the company rebuilt the Jack in the Box brand largely through aggressive efforts to improve the restaurant industry’s food-safety practices and procedures. The company introduced a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) system for managing food quality and safety that encompasses farm-to-fork procedures for safe food handling and preparation in every restaurant.Today, the company’s food safety program is recognized as one of the most comprehensive in the restaurant industry. In 2004, the company was awarded the IAFP’s prestigious Black Pearl Award as well as the Food Safety leadership Award from NSF International, a nonprofit organization also committed to food safety. Darren Blass, director of quality assurance and product safety for Jack in the Box Inc., will discuss the chain’s award-winning food-safety program, its success in rebuilding the Jack in the Box brand, and steps the company has taken to protect its guests and improve food safety and quality throughout the foodservice industry. SESSION 7: lmpact of Changing Climate and Changing Demographics on Food Safety Climate Change and the Challenge of New Pathogens mArIoN WoolDrIDGE, Centre for Epidemiology & Risk Analysis, Veterinary Laboratories Agency Addlestone, Surrey kT15 3NB, Uk Climate change and its potential effects on the environment Predictions of climate change arising from the emission of greenhouse gases include not only increased global temperatures, but also more extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall with flooding, drought and heat waves (Beniston and Diaz 2004; Hulme et al. 2002). Climate change may impact directly or indirectly on pathogens, and to varying degrees through a multitude of factors (Gale et al. 2008) including land use and farming practice, wildlife, vectors, and environmental conditions, such as increased surface water run-off and warmer-water bodies which may become stagnant. Some human factors (such as habitat change to increase biofuel production) may be in direct response to climate change. During periods of drought, the risk of escalation of a low level conflict increases (Giles 2007). military action, although not likely in the EU, could increase the prevalence and distribution of livestock diseases in other parts of the world, which in turn would increase the risk of pathogen release into the EU. As an example of the complexity of interactions, the worldwide decline in amphibians due to habitat loss, infection by a chytridiomycete fungus and climate change, may enable mosquitoes to increase in abundance (Mokany and Shine 2003). Three types of potential pathogen change are considered here. These are: • Increasing prevalence of pathogens already present; • Incursion (and persistence) of exotic pathogens in new areas; and • Mutations in the pathogen which might change host range and susceptibility, and/or the ability to adapt to new environmental niches. Possible increase in prevalence of pathogens already present Endemic pathogens which may increase in prevalence due to changing climate include the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, the spore-forming bacteria such as Clostridium botulinum and Bacillus anthracis, and the liver fluke trematode, Fasciola hepatica (Baylis and Githeko 2006). Increased flooding allows longer survival of T. gondii oocysts on pasture and favours the intermediate lymnaeid snail hosts for liver fluke. Flooding may disturb bacterial spores buried in soil. The disease botulism is an intoxication caused generally by the ingestion of the toxin in food/feeds. For cattle, for example, this requires growth of the bacteria under anaerobic conditions in the feed silage, with the production of toxin. Botulism outbreaks in wild birds in GB in 1975 occurred in areas of shallow water and the unusually hot summer that year may have provided a suitable temperature for growth of C. botulinum (Lloyd et al. 1976). The prevalence of diseases caused by faecal-oral pathogens may also be increased (Gale et al. 2008). For example, flooding increases the risk of sewage and animal slurries’ spreading onto adjacent land and fields, thus increasing the environmental loading. Climate change may result in an increase in cases of paralytic shellfish poisoning. Shellfish concentrate viral pathogens. With increasing precipitation giving nutrient laden run-off and warming, shellfish in Arctic seas may be exposed to higher quantities of viral pathogens from sewage discharges. The bacterial pathogen, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, is associated with fish and shellfish and causes gastroenteritis with outbreaks associated with average seawater temperatures above 15°C. Paz et al. (2007) have reported a link between high water temperatures and an outbreak of Vibrio vulnificus infection among fish market workers in Israel in 1996, and this infection can cause severe sepsis with mortality rates of around 40%. While some endemic diseases may increase through climate change, others may decrease. One suggested scenario is that the prevalence of tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) in humans will decrease in central Europe due to a breaking of the temporal synchrony required for tick-to-tick transmission (Rogers and Randolph 2006). FEBRUARY 2009 | FOOD PROTECTION TRENDS 91

Food Protection Trends - February 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Food Protection Trends - February 2009